{"id":142557,"date":"2021-05-10T10:22:06","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T23:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=142557"},"modified":"2021-05-18T10:23:48","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T23:23:48","slug":"joan-he-answers-our-ten-terrifying-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2021\/05\/10\/joan-he-answers-our-ten-terrifying-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan He answers our Ten Terrifying Questions!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Joan<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Joan He is a Chinese-American writer. Descendant of the Crane was her debut young-adult fantasy novel. She is donating some of the proceeds of her second novel, The Ones We\u2019re Meant to Find<\/a><\/strong>, to Ocean Conservancy. Joan lives in Philadelphia and writes from a desk overlooking the Delaware River.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Joan He is on the blog to answer our Ten Terrifying Questions – read on!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\"Joan<\/a>

Joan He<\/p><\/div>\n

1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself \u2013 where were you born? Raised? Schooled?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I was born in the city of Philadelphia and raised and schooled in its suburbs, though you wouldn\u2019t be able to tell by how often I still get lost!<\/p>\n\n\n

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By the time I was twelve, I\u2019d spent five years training as a professional artist. My parents, teachers, and peers all thought I was gifted, and I couldn\u2019t imagine being anything else. But come high school, I decided that the career wasn\u2019t for me and quit. Writing was my way of processing through the angst of losing that part of my identity. By eighteen, I was determined to become a published author. I have yet to reach thirty, but fingers crossed that I\u2019m still writing and publishing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you don\u2019t have now?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I believed that my writing was great haha. But having finally gotten past the rejections and through this door, I now deal with a lot more impostor syndrome than I did before. It\u2019s true what they say: the more you know, the more you realize you don\u2019t know. Every author around me deserves to be here, and I still have a lot of room to grow compared to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. What are three works of art \u2013 this could be a book, painting, piece of music, film, etc \u2013 that influenced your development as a writer?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Ramona Quimby<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, Spirited Away<\/em>, The Hunger Games<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Considering the many artistic forms out there, what appeals to you about writing a young adult novel?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

All the works listed above are formative for me for a reason. One of them, I\u2019d argue, is that I consumed them when I was a young adult or younger. Stories are powerful because they make us feel seen; that power is amplified when you find yourself in a book during a time when the world is a scary, lonely place and everything feels a bit apocalyptic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Please tell us about your latest book!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Ones We’re Meant to Find<\/em> is a sci-fi\/fantasy about two sisters separated by an ocean, trying to find their way back to each other. One has been stuck on an abandoned island for just over three years; another is dealing with the aftermath of her sister\u2019s disappearance while living in a futuristic world wrecked by climate change. There\u2019s a cute android, floating cities, a very big twist, and a whole lot of pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Stories are powerful because they make us feel seen; that power is amplified when you find yourself in a book during a time when the world is a scary, lonely place and everything feels a bit apocalyptic.’<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To start, more questions than answers. No matter how fantastical or speculative, I want the dilemmas in my story to mirror our real world and all of its complexities and contradictions. For The Ones We’re Meant to Find<\/em>, I pose this question in particular: Cee and Kasey are very different characters. Does one deserve to live just because we relate to them more? It\u2019s hard to care about everyone equally, and yet it\u2019s the people we do not see ourselves in\u2014the people we sometimes do not see at all\u2014who are most impacted by our actions, or lack thereof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Who do you most admire in the writing world and why?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Ack, so hard to name just one! Recently, it\u2019s been Neal Shusterman. I\u2019ve been reading him since Unwind<\/em>, and I\u2019m amazed by the breadth of his works and his particular brand of genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I probably have the same pipe dreams as every author, but my most genuine (and ambitious) goal is to never write the same story twice and to keep on publishing books without sacrificing the bits that make them mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Balance improving your craft and taking critique and figuring out what makes a story uniquely yours (and preserve that at all costs). Read, read, read. And, of course, never give up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for playing!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The Ones We’re Meant to Find<\/em><\/a> by Joan He (Text Publishing) is out now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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